Thursday, December 10, 2009

Acceleo is a pragmatic implementation of the OMG* standard for code generation called MTL*. Still in incubation state, we plan to have Acceleo graduate for the next Eclipse simultaneous release (Helios).

Being an expert at code generation or Acceleo is not necessary to get started on your first code generator : using the Acceleo editor and the powerful features it exposes (completion, syntax highlighting, on-the-fly compilation, quick outline, ...), it is very easy to get started once you understand the most basic principles.

This tutorial presents both the MTL language and the Acceleo Development Toolkit which is provided in the M2T project. Beginners will learn what code generation, M2T, and Acceleo are, as well as how to use them on a concrete case-study. Acceleo addicts will discover the new standard syntax, new functionalities and techniques. We will give you enough of the basics to create your own code generation for a specific target system. We have chosen the Android platform as a target to show that we can also use Acceleo for mobile software.

Here is the tutorial agenda :- Acceleo : What's that new code generation engine?- Create an Android prototype and its corresponding model- Initialize your code generation project from the prototype- Editing your code generation file to make the Android prototype run- Launching your code generation on another model example- Packaging as an eclipse plug-in and for standalone usage- Create new Android applications in few clicks- How to override a specific behavior in the target environment- On the developper side : How to make your own extensions with Acceleo?

We'll end the tutorial with other complex code generation examples made with Acceleo : EEF, UML to Java, Ecore to python, Migrating from a language to another...